Monthly Archives: June 2011

How does LTFS work?

The Linear Tape File System (LTFS) relies on support for partitioning was introduced in LTO generation 5. Partitioning a LTO5 cartridge divides the media in two separate data storage areas known as “partitions”. Each partition can be written to without … Continue reading

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Partitioning in LTO5 and LTFS

The LTO5 specification includes support for partitions on LTO5 data tapes. This partition support can be classified into two groups: Partition Aware and Partition Enabled. Here is the relevant definition from the LTO 5 specification: “All Generation 5 LTO Ultrium … Continue reading

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Early adopter reports on experience with LTFS

I have been working with Thought Equity Motion from very early in the LTFS productization effort. They amass very large data archives and their CTO, Mark Lemmons, was particularly excited by LTFS from a very early stage. Last year at … Continue reading

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Tape Partitioning and LTFS

Tape partitioning has been introduced over the years to a number of data tape products. Generally, this partitioning support has been under-utilized, or not-utilized by users and applications. For example, DDS tape has supported partitioning since DDS-2 released in 1993. … Continue reading

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A filesystem for tape? Why?

Tape has been around forever[1. At least since 1951 starting with the UNIVAC 1. Certainly longer than silicon transistors and modern digital computers.]. Generally, there has been no change in the way that people and applications work with tape since … Continue reading

Posted in computer history, data storage, LTFS | 1 Comment

Tape? Does anyone care about tape anymore?

Various friends and colleagues have been amused, occasionally stunned, but more often incredulous when I tell them that I am working on a project based on data tape. The commonly ventured opinion is that I should maybe think about working … Continue reading

Posted in data storage, LTFS | 3 Comments

# reboot

I have planned to move my blog to a hosting service for a while now. The administration overhead of self-hosting ended up taking up time that could be better spent writing. An unexpected change to my DSL service took my … Continue reading

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